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Eidolon

URUSHIBARA Hideko

1966

Among the glittering fragments of light, a monster crouches low on the ground and shudders, with its two eyes staring straight at us. Its skin is wrinkled as if it has absorbed the long duration of time since the beginning of the world, and makes it hard to grasp the monster's form or its outline. The title, "Eidolon", means a phantom, and also an ideal. Urushibara, who was born in London and familiar with English literature, probably chose this particular word to express an artist's vision.
Urushibara made her debut as an artist in the 1950s in a show at Takemiya Gallery, a project of the art critic Shuzo Takiguchi, and built her early career based there. Takiguchi's goal was to "fight against dependence on existing painters' circles" and to nurture" artists who consider their one-man shows to be their foremost priority"; and 1950s was a period when it first became possible for an artist to work and have shows independent of art organizations or radical groups. This painting is a product of this new development, and with its original style, refuses to be categorized with any school.